On October 1, 2026, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) launched the small suborbital rocket MAPHEUS®-17 from Sweden’s Esrange Space Center. It carried a series of experiments in compact containers that returned to Earth after the flight.
The MAPHEUS Suborbital Project
According to the German Aerospace Center’s website, MAPHEUS®-17 lifted off from Sweden’s Esrange Space Center at 9:51 a.m. Kyiv time on October 1, 2026. Rockets of this class are typically used for meteorological purposes, but this particular vehicle carried several experimental modules, making it a suborbital research flight.
MAPHEUS rockets have been launched from the Swedish space center since 2009, averaging one flight per year. These are small vehicles, measuring 12 meters in length and weighing 2.3 tonnes at launch. The MAPHEUS®-17 flight lasted 13 minutes, carrying a 360-kilogram payload to an altitude of 300 kilometers.
Such launches allow small research teams to conduct experiments in weightlessness. On MAPHEUS®-17, this phase lasted approximately seven minutes. A parachute system then slowed the payload’s descent, allowing it to land in a designated area of the Swedish taiga.
What Experiments Were Conducted on the Rocket?
A distinctive feature of MAPHEUS rockets is their modular payload arrangement, consisting of 16 small containers that provide a sealed, controlled environment and electrical power. Essentially, these are counterparts to CubeSats, designed for experiments that do not require an extended stay in orbit.
On this flight, the main payload experiment involved melting metals in weightlessness. Miniature furnaces containing samples were installed in some of the containers. The samples were melted before launch and kept in that state until microgravity began. They were then cooled while researchers observed what happened to the material.
Another experiment aboard MAPHEUS®-17 involved a miniature microscope used to study living cells. The rocket also carried TEGonaut, a system of thermoelectric generators designed to power spacecraft.
Four additional compact experiments were conducted by teams of young researchers. Participants in the “Jugend hackt” initiative, along with school students working with the DLR School Labs at DLR’s Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen sites, developed their own experiments and sent them into microgravity for a few minutes.
The young participants investigated, for example, how liquids behave in microgravity and developed their own measurement platforms using microcomputers and numerous sensors. With support from several sponsors, a group of students from Otto-Hahn-Gymnasium in Bensberg, near Cologne, was able to observe the launch preparations on site in northern Sweden.
